tv Inside Story Al Jazeera March 11, 2021 10:30am-11:01am +03
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markets in the capital harare informal traders cannot. understand the way must the practice of distancing but not everyone is a. threat as winter approaches in this region health officials are warning of a 3rd wave is called 9000 regulations on to follow that business owners on the brink of permanent closure say they can't afford another lock down. there this is al jazeera these are the headlines japan is marking 10 years since a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit its northeastern coast and triggered meltdowns at a nuclear power plant 16000 people were killed and 2500 are still missing isn't for taba in fukushima prefecture still people are in the highest emotions after they heard today the announcement of the same time when the tsunami struck this area
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behind me 10 years ago to 46 minutes. more than 10 meters of tsunami just went through all this destroyed all the houses everything in the area just behind me this mountain road leads to nuclear plant. 10 years ago it was inside the no go zone that you couldn't have approached but now we're just about 3 kilometers from the nuclear plant the u.s. house of representatives has approved a nearly 2 trillion dollars pandemic relief bill it will provide stimulus checks for millions of americans as well as extend unemployment benefits and tax breaks china's national people's congress is wrapping up right now in beijing new laws restricting democratic participation in hong kong have been discussed candidates for office will be vetted by a committee appointed by beijing. the u.s.
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is imposing sanctions on 2 adult children of myanmar's military leader made on lie after the violence against anti crew protesters there washington has frozen their assets and blacklisted 6 companies that they control the u.n. says at least $67.00 people have been killed since the military seized power last month the russian foreign minister is in kaesong on the final leg of his 4 day tour of the gulf region sergey lavrov is expected to meet to the emir of qatar and its foreign minister shortly that has already held meetings with turkey's foreign minister in doha on wednesday mining giant an oral sex nickel has paid a record fine of $2000000000.00 for an oil spill that caused one of russia's west environmental disasters last year a storage tank at a power plant in siberia leaked $21000.00 tons of diesel into rivers and lakes in the arctic well those are the headlines i'll have more news for you here to inside story do stay with us. you want to see real english streaming live on the you
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tube channel. last thousands of our programs will be with documentaries. subscribe to you would see al-jazeera english. the push for a covert 1000 vaccine for everyone less wealthy nations one interest rickson suspended so they can mass produce the jobs so why is it not happening and who should own the rights to make and distribute medicines during a global health crisis this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program i'm doubting obligato much has been reported about the an equal access to kovan 1000 vaccines around the world that 10 wealthy nations
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have secured the majority of supplies developing countries say part of the problem is that drug makers are controlling production and they're blocking access to information about how their maids south africa india and more than 100 nations want the world trade organization to wave pattern. so they can mass produce the vaccines well that's facing opposition from the united states and some european nations where firms including pfizer and astra zeneca are based the global vaccine market is estimated to be worth nearly 60000000000 dollars a year from a similar sets up our discussion from johannesburg. it was the it's been a year since the 1st 1000 in fiction was identified in south africa since then more than 50000 people have died and 1500000 have been infected while richard nations rolled out vaccines the program in south africa's been much slower.
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another important step. that account. for the duration. it's. south africa and india are leading a movement to suspend the world trade organizations agreement on intellectual property rights for covert 1000 vaccines but many high income countries including the united states and those in the european union have rejected the idea they say waiving the peyton's would put off private investors and slow down scientific innovation and existing regulations allow drug manufacturers to make their own deals with generic manufacturers while some developing nations like garner ivory coast in the suit to have begun receiving their 1st doses to the u.n. back to vaccine sharing scheme known as kovacs many others in africa are being left
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behind. there is a capacity for mr companies to produce and i stayed in medical school. it is essential that the wealthy states stop blocking or putting in legal barriers and delaying essential kozel ahead. of the world trade organization according to the united nations 3 quarters of all covert 1000 vaccines have been secured by just 10 countries all of them wealthy 130 countries that's about 2500000000 people have not received a single dose this is not the 1st public health emergency that south africa is facing and as one of the highest hiv aids rates in the world in the 1990 s. millions of people in this country and other developing nations died without access to the drugs they needed simply because they were too expensive so africa is once again calling for access to cheaper drugs to save lives with some arguing that despite covert 1000 vaccines being tested in africa many nations on the continent
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still remain at the back of the queue for me to al-jazeera johannesburg well the head of the international federation of pharmaceutical manufacturers an association says intellectual property or ip. is not the reason for supply shortages but there's anybody who knows about backs in manufacturing and was addressing. the ip is not bottlenecks. to capacity the scarcity of rheumatiz kansas city of ingredients and it is about to do so as you've been hearing india and south africa once a waiver on a w t o agreement that agreement is known as trips then 1905 provision sets basic global standards on protecting copyright industrial designs patents and trade secrets for example a patent for a new drug must be enforced for at least 20 years and during that time competitors are restricted from making using or even selling it now countries can decide what
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to protect and allow some exemptions to the rules the issue came to a head in 2001 that's when developing nations argued the restrictions made v treatment too expensive particularly in sub-saharan africa the w t o then declared that jury national emergencies countries can allow companies to use patents without permission. let them bring in our guest joining us from london is max lawson who is the head of inequality policy at oxfam international and with us from new delhi is russia. on an intellectual property lawyer and legal counsel for not co pharma and joining us from barcelona is jeffrey lazarus who's the head of the health systems research group at the barcelona institute for global health thanks for joining us welcome to inside story max let me start with you you say there is huge support to remove intellectual property or ip and this movement is gaining ground when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine tell us why you say that and what you're basing that on well i think when
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you see that number of countries now supporting example pricker in india the government yard 100 countries you're seeing people at the party print a very private group we're hearing brontë this. things that cracks are appearing in some of the rich country governments nancy pelosi had of the democrats in the senate came out in favor of just last week so i think we are seeing momentum building and it's no surprise really because the whole world can see the level of vaccine apartheid in front of our eyes and the matter what pharmaceutical companies might say to the country it's quite clear that they are not fixing this problem and we cannot have a situation as the head of the w h harry said where we are leaving to a few companies who decides who lives and dollars that that's just not sustainable in the long run amounts why we need to see this. moves at the w t o 2 lifting to get to property during the pandemic happens so that we can vaccinate the world so we can supply
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a safe and effective back to every single country on the jeffrey those critical off india and south of africa as proposal argued that the suspension of patents would not address the production and shortage issues that are currently plaguing vaccination drive globally and in fact this is going to hamper scientific innovation are they right well with regards to production and we were seeing production delays even in the high income countries where they're not able to produce the vaccines. fast enough by and by any means so i think that any country that has the capacity to produce vaccine is should be allowed that means suspend the ip and i think that needs to happen if it can be done through agreements that don't require suspending ip to buy that or other agreements i think that that's the way we need to go. india and south africa are behind this post let's talk about india for
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a moment why do you think they're at the forefront of this movement. you know i think there is a lot of support for this movement and because one of the key issues here is is that i barriers to the access was young or was the medicine then those battles should be addressed and i.a.e.a. id is one of the key barriers and it is way clearer but you know i see the eyes should be 'd suspended and commuting the beat of the band to make it to the next 45 years so that everybody is really the region on this going to get the vaccine if we're going to be labelled to make it then they should be permitted to make it and i think we should not become a barrier i don't know if this is this just to ration this very situation that i've been and that's often good and that is why you have those provisions so if we don't use them now and then bank rate you had a similar case yourself back in 2012 and the granting of a compulsory license for medicine that reason for cancer treatments just tell us
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a little bit about vax and what's different this time around with covered vaccinations. so in 22 we have brought up there was a product which is sort of a committee and water treatment look kidney and lung cancer give me again so then live ok so i'll back off to you about $3.00 to $4000.00 and the guy on the street was and diane i don't want to go by the population so we find i'm usually welcome but after eli and all our education work and those by the pool and loyalty all the bugs 67 percent of you have done just become buds to die so that was the case graham the number of patients in the country was less than a vote of that but you know we're talking about a situation where there are millions and millions of people who need to be back to make it so that it doesn't change the provisions under that just as bad as i was at
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the gym back which gave these kind of situations i'm there what i mean. this is a debate on need there is a thing to lead in this budget this particular situation doing what these provisions and i've lived them and the respective government should take the steps and glasses. on the bridge and drive it but max max what do you say to the to some of the pharmaceutical industry who say look we're already witnessing in sort of unprecedented level of collaboration already among companies so far as you know drug makers and manufacturers in the developing world includes johnson and johnson with aspen pharmacare in south africa well we know that astra zeneca and novak have made a deal with the sara mensah truth of india where we're speaking to reza shorey from what's your response to that there is already collaboration with doesn't mean some collaboration but it's also clearly not enough amounts for the head of the w i chose said this with we need to see much much more manufacturing in developing
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countries that are much much lower cost you have a situation with. if you like uganda are paying more for their vaccinations in the e.u. this is not a sustainable situation sorry we need to see much much more investment in manufacturing and at the moment we have a situation where rich countries about 1001 person a 2nd where the majority of developing countries have yet to vaccinate and pulled a and we know that there are clear self interested arguments for blacks in 1000 the world not least the part that mutations from originating country thought south africa and brazil are going to render taxes ineffective so the safety the security of the people in the u.k. for the old people like my mother it was vaccinated a couple of weeks ago the heart that we all fear when people decide if we vaccinated could be dashed if we see it is mutations spread before we can vaccinate the world so we need to do a lot more and it's quite clear that no pharmaceutical company so i pods donnan off
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some of them more than others astra zeneca has gone a lot further and done a lot more deals in developing countries that it's not to say there's not about the all the sun where you have a foreign company is would also say macs that well running these types of companies are expensive and without a profit they're not going to survive this is simply their business model that's been around for many many years yes they would say that but i think in this case i mean i would dispute that but i would also dispute the in particular in this case all of the leading banks and candidates have been hugely funded by public money by taxpayers' money and that has covered all of the risks of their investment all the risks of their production so it's simply not the case that they risk loss of their money and they need to recoup those profits and certainly not the levels of profit that we're seeing from the marks of farms and mcdonagh between a 60 and 80 percent profit margin on a vaccine that was based on research that was publicly supported in germany so
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implement the popular support in the us it's simply. not the case. it's that business model would collapse and even if it did why should we put the business more bloat this one industry ahead of the survival of humanity you know there was a reason to question the defensive into that your profits and it is now and we have 2 new faults and we have to banks in the world of these companies and simply not stepping up jeffrey would you like to weigh in on this i mean these companies obviously research and development is crucial and making a profit is very important to them that is how they survive and tell us how much you think is spent on research and development when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine in particular if you have that information. well i don't have the numbers in front of me but as was just said i mean i do advance purchasing in other forms of support you know governments the public sector has been financing the
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development of these vaccines and i appreciate that the companies need to have profits and some of those profits will go into further development which we're going to need probably with development of variants that can lead to resistance of the current that scenes but i think it's time for the high income countries to step up and say well we'll we'll cover those costs and leave and pay for the difference in having that c. is manufactured at a lower cost in low income countries if it means everyone can get that seed it quickly because if we don't do that and variance do develop then we're back to where we started with having to develop boosters or new that seems in that sitting everyone against it's really in everyone's interest to vaccinate the population as quickly as possible through whatever way we can and if that means more public funds going to the companies then i think so be it look at the amount of money we're losing but having the economy paralyzed right now if you read the story would it be
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correct to say that even if this waiver that you're calling for in fact all of your calling for is put in place then this will still not give access to other elements that are needed to produce vaccine such as the know how such as regulatory filings and for that to happen you need direct technology transfer is that not correct. so that was the only positive reaction because all you would have enough companies who are already there the with the technology because it all. with are betting that india or elsewhere they only have the know how you know just good use of these vaccines it is not that they are going to have been used this for the los angles meet these kind of products for the full time but an idea is one of the barrier then i think that's a battle that we are trying to address before but it should be removed what a lot of goodies that you know well behaved. and flows go ahead test finish your
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thought you know so i don't think that you know i ids one of the barriers and that should be to move nice guy he's got his agenda become huge loving deal not the country off without the technology but use it that may be something of a dream shoes and build up things that get in your company easily so do you think if the waiver does pass through the w t o then is the outcome guaranteed and what is the ultimate outcome that you're looking for. one of the all of them that we would look for is that without the feel it also infringing on might be a lot of companies in india as well as not the countries would be free to prepare them jobs and in fact we would have more numbers like see which of the double throughout the globe back would you only had a puzzle a lot you know to get these things made for example
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a lot of stuff that i'm broke that i hold more than 3 to 4000 copies in india so if that is a mighty big i would imagine that priest about a 1000 companies if not a krishna 500 companies would be able to manufacture these jobs i mean all the needs that in india they would be able to export it to countries like china and south africa likes that job and awkward really so long so i can use just such an flip above you know population can be dick can go so out of the population that me looking was young do you feel like a huge so this is the guy this is precisely why didn't that just wanted to exit so if we don't address it in all of this time then we have to create my thing you're nodding along at registrar about the same writing you think difference would be that the waiver would actually make would it make the huge difference that some seem to think it might. i think it's clear that it's necessary not sufficient we need to get rid of these internet to procure farias but we also need to look at my
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house but i also think there's an element of con of almost colonialism the sense that only western countries are clever enough to make vaccines it's privacy i mean just last week we had a call with the head of a leading run you fracture in bangladesh he said he tried to approach me he was ignored he could produce back scenes in 3 or 4 months and he has state of the art technology which is a simple myth that this is so complicated that only very clever american scientists know how to produce the vaccine and i was to say i smacks of colonialism what we need to see is a recognition that there is capacity and ability or even the world but we also need to invest in more capacity and we have the former head of chemistry at medinah who left saying that he thinks within 3 or 4 months you could repurpose existing track trees to be rolling out these new m.r. in a vaccines in the hundreds of millions so we need to invest in that now to tackle coronavirus
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but imagine that the world we could build with a distributed capacity or over the world to turn back seems around very far as if we do that if we build that system will be not only safer from coronavirus but safer for future pandemics instead we're using a very old fashioned mobile homes in the profits of companies. the people's back saying and that seems strategically. strange look just look at this week we saw a time you plant come out and say that it's in the strategic and defense interests of rich nations to invest in publicly our own and vaccine manufacturing facilities that we can't leave this to the market so this is not not just an ngo campaign or even these are mainstream commentators who really believe that this is not the time to be put in the market interests ahead of the strategic. the world rate there are those obviously that support but at the same time the pharmaceutical companies and
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countries like the united states and some countries in europe are digging their heels in max so how do you how do you how do you sort of get over that and i mean they're just recently there were some republican senators who've also written a letter to the u.s. president joe biden urging him not to accept that proposal by india and south africa so there is pushback. it was definitely pushed and i agree and it's the power of the the loping power of the big pharmaceutical johnson is enormous but we are also seeing cracks as i said nancy pelosi is come out and the most senior ranking democrat has come out actively in favor of the waiver as have many other democratic senate is we know the answer he found she in the us the chief scientist has also said that we need to look at are becoming patents and we do think there is progress in us we think in germany we've heard serious senior politicians question the value of defending ip at this stage remember we saw the situation where the
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e.u. some of the richest countries are not getting the vaccines they thought they'd ordered because supply is controlled by these companies so there's a real feeling that the system is not working so i think we're starting to see cracks appear in the governments of rich nations but yes there are still some famous defenders of our papers jumps in for instance to us today said again that he thinks intellectual property sacrosanct so where we win this argument we really hopes are we will keep writing for it but i do think we are starting to see cracks appear in the politics of rich nations on this issue jeffrey do you agree do we do we see cracks now and do you think that waiving intellectual property rights alone solves the cove in 1000 vaccine access going forward yeah i think we are seeing some cox's was described i don't think waving it is is the answer right now we have a production issue and i mean i think you know we can ask the companies give them a very short timeline and say you know if the ip isn't going to be waived you know
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how can you scale a distribution which countries which companies can you collaborate with it's been really surprising to me to see how few production sites there are and we've known since summer that accies were you know in their final you know clinical trials and we've had. already this year for vaccines approved but still no one's really been thinking carefully about how do we ramp up that kind of distributions are the companies need to come up with that dish with production the companies need to come up with a production plan if they can't then they get temporary suspension that would allow other settings to produce that i've seen and that was said this is an important investment for those. countries because this is pandemic preparedness moving forward and if it's a financial issue then i think the high income countries should look at how they're going to you know invest in the companies for developing you know boosters and new
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vaccines as needed if there's resistance i suppose some would say well this is why the kovacs program geoffrey has been put into place to supply vaccines to the less developed nations well it is but we don't have the vaccines to really supply i think that's that's the big problem i mean you know again in the european union and you know there's really very few countries that have even 5 percent of their population that's needed and we've been doing this now for over over 2 months so kovacs can work with the equity issue if we have vaccines but lead to be producing those and right now in the middle of the pandemic unless fussed about if they're being produced in low income countries or high income countries i just want to see them produced if we can support the production in low and middle income countries i think it's a wise investment the last question to each of you jeffrey i'll start with you do you think that the w t o is failing developing countries. that does
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a tough question to answer and i think it's not just the w.t.f. that needs to be considered i think the high income countries and and companies stanley well right now because we're producing the next scenes since the registrar if what do you think about the w t o is a failing you know i why i wouldn't say gives only the wu if it via oh i think nations by himself needed and they also have been followed it's not that you know we have to wait for the perfection by the government you only been. able to do a one then you can start right the nations by then so be followed as a fan of a very big thing that i would be to actually just coming into genetic production by several other companies the commissions just out of those nations to stand up and just don't wait like a mad last 10 seconds for you apologies we've run out of time max last words to you
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. rich countries or they should stop defending from appropriates and start getting behind of people's backs and now history will judge them that if they don't do that we need to see these people's backs and we need to see the world nights i thank you so much i will leave it there on that note thank you very much for joining us max lawson registrar you herad and geoffrey lazarus thanks so much for your time and thank you for watching the program you can see all our previous programs any time of course by visiting our website al-jazeera dot com for further discussion you can always go to our facebook page facebook dot com for its last a day inside story join the conversation on twitter our handle is a inside story for myself and a whole team here in the house thanks for watching but i for now. we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so
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at least 6 people are killed in myanmar's knowing town as the military intensifies its crackdown against and you protest it's. clear that i missed the says al jazeera live from doha also coming up 10 years on japan remembers the victims of its magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami the destroyed towns and triggered a nuclear meltdown and for.
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